Where Liberalism Is Alive and Well!

Day: April 27, 2010

I frequently think of the Richard Pryor line, (paraphrasing) “who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes”. It must be really hard for the Tea Partiers and hard core conservatives to continue to believe the lies that they have chosen to promote. I realize some of the people don’t know any better, they are just regurgitating what Rush and Glenn tell them. But others clearly know they are lying but continue to do it in the light of the truth. Bob Cesca has a post about this…

But for some reason the teabaggers are still very, very angry even though the economy is improving, taxes are lower and the president is assembling a commission for debt reduction. ROOOOOWWWR! Still angry! So angry, in fact, that people are seriously considering voting for Republicans in November. Yep, we really need a GOP Congress right now. Just as things are improving, we’ll get a Congress ensconced in nothing but frivolous investigations of the president.

Here is a great summary comparing Clinton’s progressive economic policies pitted against George W. Bush’s return to the tired old supply-side economics that ran up the National debt in the early 80’s. Hat tip to Oliver Willis, from the Center for American Progress…

Progress

President Clinton took office at a time of large deficits and high unemployment. The country was headed in the wrong direction after more than a decade of supply-side economics. President Clinton turned the country around by adopting progressive economic policies that focused on reducing the budget deficit, halting the widening gap between rich and poor, and spurring innovation and investment. By the end of his term, these progressive policies had yielded the longest sustained period of economic growth in American history and more than 23 million new jobs.

Regress

Despite the clear success of progressive policies in the 1990s, President Bush returned the country to the failed economic strategy of focusing on the very wealthy under the theory that their success would “trickle down” to everyone else. It didn’t work out that way. President Bush cut taxes repeatedly for high-income earners and on capital gains, with the promise that those cuts would result in impressive growth for everyone. The rich were doing very well after eight years of supply-side policies, but everyone else was falling back. Median incomes and wages were down, poverty was up, job growth was anemic, and unemployment was beginning to soar.